Who or what are Kurdles? Are they man or beast—or something else entirely?

As it happens, Kurdles are the denizens of Kurdleton, and Sally the bear runs into them as she tries to find her way home after being separated from her owner. So begins this 60-page all ages tale, and we have here a 9-page, downloadable excerpt for your viewing pleasure. At a generous 8.75" by 12", the oversized format of The Kurdles allows you and your little ones to be fully immersed in the lush watercolor world that Robert Goodin has created, not to mention all the individual details that one can discover through rereadings.

This week from comiXology you can now enjoy the finest graphic novels: Michael Jordan: Bull on Paradeby Wilfred Santiago(21). A thrilling, kinetic bio-epic about Michael "Air" Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time and most influential athlete in history, from the creator of the acclaimed and best-selling 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente. This tour de force explores Jordan's public successes and private struggles, with the depth of Santiago's passion for his subject shining through on every full-color page. Feel the sweat as you swipe for only $18.99!

"From a scuffle with Patrick Ewing in the book's opening pages to the titanic feat of multiple NBA Championships, this book breaths with potent comic book electricity, phrasing court pivots and jump-shots with the same bombast as celestial superhero brawls." –Sean Edgar, Paste Magazine

In addition, you can also read Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen by Dylan Horrocks (Hicksville). Cartoonist Sam Zabel hasn't drawn a comic in years. Stuck in a nightmare of creative block and despair, Sam spends his days writing superhero stories for a large American comics publisher and staring at a blank piece of paper, unable to draw a single line. Then one day he finds a mysterious old comic book set on Mars and is suddenly thrown headlong into a wild, fantastic journey through centuries of comics, stories, and imaginary worlds. Accompanied by a young webcomic creator named Alice and an enigmatic schoolgirl with rocket boots and a bag full of comics, Sam goes in search of the Magic Pen, encountering sex-crazed aliens, medieval monks, pirates, pixies and - of course - cartoonists. Funny, erotic, and thoughtful, Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen explores the pleasures, dangers, and moral consequences of fantasy. This fantasy can be yours for the touch of a digital button.

"This is a complicated, rich story about confronting the sometimes-lurid or nakedly obvious wish-fulfillment aspects of comic books, but it's also about the ways Sam's distress with the world can't be satisfied by other people's ideas of paradise." –Tasha Robinson, NPR

Portland, time to get high and then get low with the curated mess of SuperTrash: Hermaphro Chic, Movie Fetish, 21st Century Anxiety by Jacques Boyreau. The book signing starts at 8pm sharp on Saturday February 28th, taking place at Mother Foucault's Bookshop (523 SE Morrison Street), the music by Matt Danger and a performance by Catherine Candor. Alcoholic refreshments are provided so all will have a good time. Part psychedelic psychotronic, part poster book, part album cover book, part paperback pulp book. Interdisciplinary, quantal, and polyglottal, SuperTrash is Surrealism for the 21st century and you'll want a copy of this mega-slick-zine in your collection!

For the geek in us all, Geek Bar Beta is fostering a pretty rad and inclusive environment for whatever your flavor is; be it cosplayers wanting to find people for team-ups, trivia, board games (just like Seattle's FANTASTIC Café Mox), and movie screenings. Especially that MST3k screening Space Mutiny on February 24th, just saying, it's a really good one. And all of this can be enjoyed while feasting on some excellent cocktails, perhaps in the style of Doctor Who, and vittles.

Photo by Peter Ranvestel

Geek Bar Beta will be playing host to Lucy Knisley soon for a signing, details to come, but in the meantime you can enjoy it's growing comic book library and read a Fantagraphics book!

It's a good thing these advance copies of The Complete Eightballcomes shrinkwrapped, else all our advance copies would be covered in drool by now! The long-awaited, painstakingly proofed, and completely perfected box set collecting all 18 issues of Daniel Clowes' influential Eightball comic series have arrived fresh from the printers. And it looks beautiful.

Two glossy hardcover volumes of roughly 280 pages each filled with extras, including brand new artwork by Clowes, are all wrapped up in a deluxe, sturdy slipcase cover with no detail spared! Look for our video and more photos soon. The Complete Eightballhits bookstores in May, but we fully anticipate that this box set will sell like hot cakes, so safer to pre-order now!

Film Noir 101 editor and curator Mart Fertig writes: Film noir flourished in Hollywood throughout the 1940s and 1950s, owing to a perfect storm of cultural, political, and industry-specific forces, including the disillusionment and pessimism lingering from the Great Depression; the popularity of hardboiled writers such as Hammett, Chandler, and Cain; the disconcerting wartime experience of the American fighting man and his difficulty readjusting to domestic life; a new generation of independent, professional, and dissatisfied women; the public's fascination with Freudian analysis; Cold War fears of the atomic bomb and perceived threats of domestic communism; the suspect veracity of the American Dream; and urbanization brought on by war production, followed by the rise of suburbia and runaway materialism.

Within the movie industry, additional circumstances fostered the development of film noir, including the deterioration of the studio system and an increased need for low-cost or "B" pictures; advances in film processing and portable camera equipment; a war-weakened production code; the demands of more sophisticated ticket-buyers; and most importantly, the arrival in Hollywood from ravaged Europe of a cohort of extraordinarily gifted but cynical filmmakers. The posters offer insight not only into Hollywood movie marketing techniques, but also into the gun-waving, cigarette-smoking, fedora-wearing, loot-grabbing, back-stabbing, car-crashing, legs-showing, bare-knuckled glorious iconography of the film noir style.

Master of horror Josh Simmons is back with an all-new graphic novel filled with terrors to chill the mind and soul. In Black River, the world is a barren, post-apocalyptic landscape where no one is to be trusted and chaos reigns. A ragtag group of people travel together for safety, looking out for each other as they seek a supposed walled city that still has electricity and some semblance of civilization left.

Is it the impeccable draftsmanship and absolute mastery of drawing horses? Is it the scary beasts?

The saucy threats from a wife to her husband? Or is it consistently amazing comics coupled with out-of-this-world production? Whatever it is, Prince Valiant Volume 10 1955-1956 by Hal Foster (a past 2012, 2014 Eisner nominee) hit the NY Times Best Seller list. Volume 8 hit the NY Times Best Seller's list this time last year. Volume 10 traverses the lands of Constantinople, Eastern Russia and Camelot in addition to wrapping up stories on the kidnapping of Aleta, Valiant's trusty wife, and hunger problems in Thule.

And we're pretty sure it had to do with this pre-David Bowie yet Bowie-esque look on the cover. Or all of the above.

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